Exploring Ubuntu Touch, the other Linux OS for your phone

It's far from done, but Canonical's mobile work-in-progress has some good ideas.

The chances are good that if you're buying a smartphone or tablet in 2013, you're buying something with iOS or Android on it. The two operating systems loom so large over their competitors that even the entrenched, deep-pocketed Microsoft has had trouble making headway into this market with its Windows Phone, Windows 8, and Windows RT systems.

Google and Apple's combined dominance hasn't stopped others from trying, though. New mobile operating systems have been springing up like weeds in the last six months. RIM (now BlackBerry) finally launched the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Z10 in an attempt to overhaul its image. Mozilla is making Firefox OS in an effort to tackle developing markets and prove that a browser is all you really need. And Canonical wants to take Ubuntu beyond the desktop with Ubuntu Touch.

We got a not-quite-hands-on test drive of a 12.10-based version of Ubuntu's mobile operating system back at CES, but the OS images were recently updated to Ubuntu 13.04 when Raring Ringtail was introduced at the end of last month. Though Ubuntu Touch won't be available at retail before the end of this year at the earliest, we figured now is an opportune time to check in and see how things are going.

It can't be stressed enough that even in this updated form, Ubuntu Touch is nowhere near usable as a mainstream mobile operating system. Canonical makes no claim that it is. For now, the software is about half development environment and half proof-of-concept tech demo. As such, we aren't going to be evaluating Ubuntu Touch using quite the same criteria we'd use for a shipping product—we're going to be focusing more on how the OS looks and works and less on how it performs. As we get closer to Ubuntu 14.04 and presumably Ubuntu Touch's retail availability, we'll certainly be revisiting it with a more critical eye.

Smell you later, Android: Installing Ubuntu Touch

Enlarge/ After many frustrating hours, I realized that this wasn't the right way to install Ubuntu to the Galaxy Nexus.

Andrew Cunningham

Dedicated Ubuntu Touch hardware isn't here yet. If you want to run the operating system, you need an Android device with an unlocked bootloader. We ran through the complete installation instructions several times on our devices, and we'll present a condensed version here for your convenience.

Today there are four devices onto which you can easily load Ubuntu Touch: the Galaxy Nexus, the Nexus 4, the Nexus 7, and the Nexus 10. As Android reference devices, these phones and tablets are all pretty easy to unlock and manipulate, and their software and drivers are all readily available from Google and the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Because Ubuntu Touch relies on a few low-level parts of Android to work—the Linux kernel, graphics and audio drivers, and software for using the phone's cellular radio—porting the OS to any other device requires that software to be available.

A considerable amount of work has been done to port Ubuntu Touch to a smattering of other phones and tablets, the full list of which can be found on this Devices page. Images for these devices aren't hosted by Canonical, but the flashing instructions and status pages are all linked there. At the time of writing, the instructions that we cover here won't apply to any non-Nexus devices.

You only need a few things to get started: a working Ubuntu computer (or Ubuntu VM with USB passthrough support), a micro-USB cable to connect to your phone or tablet, and a Nexus phone or tablet that you don't have any important data on. This particular flashing process is potentially destructive. Canonical warns that you can "potentially brick your device," so it would be best not to install the software on hardware that you rely on from day-to-day.

First, you'll need to grab the appropriate Android development tools for your Ubuntu computer, which can be executed through a couple of simple terminal commands. Start by adding the Ubuntu Touch PPA to your list of repositories:

This will add both the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) that you'll need to communicate with the device and the phablet-flash tool used to flash it.

Next, you'll need to unlock the bootloader on your phone or tablet and enable USB debugging. The standard warnings about unlocking your bootloader apply here: a device with an unlocked bootloader can be made to run malicious code at boot, and unlocking your bootloader also makes it easier for anyone with physical access to your phone to bypass any PIN or password you may have set.

Unlocking the developer-centric Nexus devices is pretty simple. First, power the device off, then power it on while holding down the power, volume down, and volume up buttons. Once you see the bootloader screen, plug the phone or tablet into your Ubuntu PC, open up a terminal window, and type sudo fastboot oem unlock. Accept the terms of service, and then unplug the device from the Ubuntu PC and reboot.

When the device reboots, tap through the first-time setup stuff until you're on the Android home screen. Go into the Settings app, scroll all the way to the bottom, tap "About [device]," and then tap repeatedly on the build number until the device informs you that you're now a developer. Tap the back button, tap the now-visible "Developer Options"menu, and check the "USB debugging" box.

Almost done! Next, go back to your Ubuntu PC, and in your terminal window type adb kill-server followed by adb start-server to make sure the ADB service is running properly. Plug your Android device back in via USB and tap OK when asked to allow USB debugging. Finally, type phablet-flash -b to deploy the appropriate Ubuntu Touch image to your Nexus device; this will take some time, but when it reboots your phone or tablet should be thoroughly Ubuntu-fied.

The installation wiki page has a few extra instructions that could be helpful if you encounter problems (like if your device can't make it past the boot screen after unlocking, which happened to our Nexus 10), but these steps should make your Nexus devices into Ubuntu devices without too much trouble. That wiki page will also come in handy if you'd like to get Android back on your devices when you're finished playing with Ubuntu. For the more adventurous, it's also possible to have both Ubuntu and Android installed on your device at once, but that's more than we'll get into here.

75 Reader Comments

Can someone summarize the appeal of this? I love Ubuntu and use it every day on my main laptop, but the main appeal is the shell, grep/sed/awk/etc, the repos, and super awesome for python/scala/ruby/LaTeX work. The GUI elements are generally not why people love Linux. So what is the draw of an Ubuntu phone/tablet OS?

Speaking for myself:

I've used both iOS and Android.

With iOS I always felt like Apple was trying their hardest to prevent me from doing things I wanted to do with my phone. Even simple things like changing carrier on an unlocked phone was a pain: I had to use a 3rd party hack just to make the carrier apn setting visible to get 3g data. As the locked-down, user-hostile nature of iOS is well known, I won't go on about it needlessly here.

With Android you can do what you like with your device and run what you want on your device, but much of the core functionality depends on Google services. Often there are no real alternatives (or no good ones) because the Google stuff does work and "if it ain't broke" (...although there is Fdroid, which helps). Consequently if you decide you don't want to use those services (perhaps because you are privacy-conscious) doing very simple things suddenly becomes a lot more difficult. Also, the loss of USB mass-storage makes users jump through additional hoops for no good reason (ESPECIALLY if you use an OS which does not support MTP out of the box). And a lot of what I would regard as fairly normal tasks seem either rely on rooting or involve convoluted work-arounds to avoid having to invoke root privileges. All this adds up to an experience which quickly starts to feel as restrictive and frustrating as iOS.

All in all, with both OSs I have felt that I had to struggle with my phone to get it do do what I want the way I want.

I'm HOPING that Ubuntu Touch will be more like my PC, in that 1. I'll be able to use the device as I see fit, and run whatever I want to run, 2. I'll be able to decide which online services (if any) I want to use, and 3. I'll be able to make decisions about disclosing my personal information without loosing core functionality. Basically I'd just like my phone to be as easy to use as my PC is. In 2013 that shouldn't be so much to ask.

If one were to believe the press, PCs are in fact very hard to use. That's why PC sales are declining and average joes are going with easy to use tablets where you don't have to spend hours maintaining the device. If you made the phone like a PC, i doubt it would do well. Just look at Windows Mobile.

"UGhhhhhh, Microsoft is trying to create an operating system that runs on Desktops, tablets and phones. I don't want any stupid touch UI stuff contaminating my pure mouse desktop."

2013:

"Finally Linux is offering a singular OS experience that runs on everything from my phone to my desktop! The future is here! Long live Linux!"

I'm not seeing that at all here. A lot of the interest and praise here is coming from the crowd that had or wanted Meego/Maemo devices. This project is similar in a lot of ways. There's also the subject of Unity. There is a decent amount of dislike towards Unity in the comments here, and some may feel it appropriate for a touch device, but not a mouse and keyboard environment. This kind of comment is pure trolling, because the Linux userbase is going to generally be much more critical. We'll complain that one Linux DE is trying to copy the stupid things another Linux DE did, and in a manner harsh enough to make most Mac vs. PC flamewars look downright serene. Seriously, read a mailing list argument now and again. It's downright vicious.

If one were to believe the press, PCs are in fact very hard to use. That's why PC sales are declining and average joes are going with easy to use tablets where you don't have to spend hours maintaining the device. If you made the phone like a PC, i doubt it would do well. Just look at Windows Mobile.

Maybe Ubutu isn't for the average joe. There are enough users interested in Ubuntu to keep it ticking.

"UGhhhhhh, Microsoft is trying to create an operating system that runs on Desktops, tablets and phones. I don't want any stupid touch UI stuff contaminating my pure mouse desktop."

2013:

"Finally Linux is offering a singular OS experience that runs on everything from my phone to my desktop! The future is here! Long live Linux!"

Speaking for myself only. I'm a fan in theory of the direction that MS is trying, although the execution appears to be lacking so far (just based on a few things I've read). I'm also a fan of someone else trying to do the same general thing, and hope they get it right.

I've not been a fan of the idea that there is something inherently different in smartphones that mean people no longer care about multi-tasking or having a file manager or anyone of a number of things that are taken for granted on a desktop OS.

If one were to believe the press, PCs are in fact very hard to use. That's why PC sales are declining and average joes are going with easy to use tablets where you don't have to spend hours maintaining the device. If you made the phone like a PC, i doubt it would do well. Just look at Windows Mobile.

Maybe Ubutu isn't for the average joe. There are enough users interested in Ubuntu to keep it ticking.

Without enough users, apps and services won't be available on Ubuntu phone. Users will most likely switch to another platform.

Jolla has mostly demoed Sailfish on N950s, which had become the dev phones for the N9. Floating around the intertubes is a Sailfish image that can be installed on the N950. That image, AFAIK, won't work on the N9.

They've demoed it on N9 almost as much, it's nothing to do w/a image for the N9 not being available.

Quote:

Maybe Sailfish was very alpha stage at that time and having the N9 community play with it would break it repeatedly in public - but they should have come out and said it.

They have, they've also explained why it'll never be fully supported or work well, most of their serious dev work has actually been occurring with internal hw that's never been shown. N9/950 has only ever been for demo & UX testing purposes

Jolla has mostly demoed Sailfish on N950s, which had become the dev phones for the N9. Floating around the intertubes is a Sailfish image that can be installed on the N950. That image, AFAIK, won't work on the N9.

They've demoed it on N9 almost as much, it's nothing to do w/a image for the N9 not being available.

Quote:

Maybe Sailfish was very alpha stage at that time and having the N9 community play with it would break it repeatedly in public - but they should have come out and said it.

They have, they've also explained why it'll never be fully supported or work well, most of their serious dev work has actually been occurring with internal hw that's never been shown. N9/950 has only ever been for demo & UX testing purposes

Thanks, jalyst, you're one of the more knowledgeable persons about the NIT/Maemo/MeeGo/Mer/Jolla efforts. I did not know Sailfish on an N9 had been shown in public.

Yes, Jolla has absolutely no obligation to support other companies' hardware. In fact, it would even be stupid.

Nice thread you've linked, btw. Mid-2014 for UbuntuPhone, even later if the Mir server development slides?

If one were to believe the press, PCs are in fact very hard to use. That's why PC sales are declining and average joes are going with easy to use tablets where you don't have to spend hours maintaining the device. If you made the phone like a PC, i doubt it would do well. Just look at Windows Mobile.

Maybe Ubutu isn't for the average joe. There are enough users interested in Ubuntu to keep it ticking.

Without enough users, apps and services won't be available on Ubuntu phone. Users will most likely switch to another platform.

If one were to believe the press, PCs are in fact very hard to use. That's why PC sales are declining and average joes are going with easy to use tablets where you don't have to spend hours maintaining the device. If you made the phone like a PC, i doubt it would do well. Just look at Windows Mobile.

Maybe Ubutu isn't for the average joe. There are enough users interested in Ubuntu to keep it ticking.

Without enough users, apps and services won't be available on Ubuntu phone. Users will most likely switch to another platform.

That depends on the needs of those users. Half of the 'apps' on these platforms exist to deal with limitations in the OS. If we've got access to a full fledged browser and busybox from the start, it's arguably already got more utility. If we could put scripts on the home screen and there's decent text editing capabilities, its no contest for me.

The design of the basic gestures seem weird to me. With all edges being used by the OS will there be any possibility for apps to use the edges? If not it feels like the possible navigation options inside apps will be quite limited, especially on phones with smaller screens.

Meego on Nokia N9 uses all the edges.

This does not cause any navigation problems in any of the thousands of apps for that platform. One interesting app is Opera broser, whose logic area user display extends to the left of the screen and to the right of the screen (tabs on the left, navigation on the right). When you drag your screen left wise or rightwise the whole browser moves, hiding part of the main screen but showing those side areas.

Sure, the first time you try it you are like to exit Opera (which keeps running in the background, of course), but soon enough you get used to it.

A face without buttons. What could be cleaner? The whole phone has three. Total.

I'm probably being dumb here, but isn't Ubuntu-built-on-top-of-android a bit like releasing a version of Windows which needs to be installed on top of OSX, from a business standpoint?

Completely!

Except for a couple of minor bits about Android being an open source project and able to be easily broken apart/forked/patched etc for free, Ubuntu using the lower layers of Android only, Ubuntu including that low level Android code as a single system rather that something separate the user installs on top of Android, Android already using the same kernel as Ubuntu's desktop and server distros etc.

So apart from all that stuff - it's exactly the same!

(Note: Darwin would've been a better example than OS X, but still a stretch)

"UGhhhhhh, Microsoft is trying to create an operating system that runs on Desktops, tablets and phones. I don't want any stupid touch UI stuff contaminating my pure mouse desktop."

2013:

"Finally Linux is offering a singular OS experience that runs on everything from my phone to my desktop! The future is here! Long live Linux!"

2 things.

1: This may be how it looks from the outside. From the inside (of the linux community), Canonical is getting a lot of flack, and "tablet UI" has become something of a curse word. Long-time users have migrated in droves from Ubuntu to more ... luddite ... distros.

2: Windows slapped a touch UI onto the PC/laptop - "get used to it, buddy!". Ubuntu touch is a version of Ubuntu optimized for touch input. The desktop version will remain optimized for keyboard and mouse. There's doing it right and there's doing it wrong

Interestingly enough they're aiming for one codebase for tablet, phone and pc. That kinda worries me a bit. But, overall, I completely agree with the steps that Canonical are taking. They should have done this a long time ago.

What I can see so far is not a single codebase, but more of codebase sharing thing. The UI for the phone is completely different from the PC's Unity. While underlying libraries, demons, etc can mostly be easily shared between a desktop and a cell phone, the UI must stay different. If that trend carries on, a future released Ubuntu Phone will get one more customer.

Thanks, jalyst, you're one of the more knowledgeable persons about the NIT/Maemo/MeeGo/Mer/Jolla efforts. I did not know Sailfish on an N9 had been shown in public. Yes, Jolla has absolutely no obligation to support other companies' hardware. In fact, it would even be stupid. Nice thread you've linked, btw. Mid-2014 for UbuntuPhone, even later if the Mir server development slides? Edit: meanwhile, Jolla's Facebook page just posted "Only one week to go"...

They've indicated they could have something available as early as October, but that's likely to be little more than CM (surface-flinger) + libhybris + chrooted Ubuntu (with most of the work for that done at the QML UX/native_apps layer). They're -almost- completely new stack (not just Android with some lipstick) isn't likely to be mature enough until Q1 2014 at the earliest.

I'm probably being dumb here, but isn't Ubuntu-built-on-top-of-android a bit like releasing a version of Windows which needs to be installed on top of OSX, from a business standpoint?

That's where they're starting, this time next year they'll be using a very different stack, can't say I'm super excited by their approach though, it's a profoundly divisive one, in a community that really doesn't need any more division.

Interestingly enough they're aiming for one codebase for tablet, phone and pc. That kinda worries me a bit. But, overall, I completely agree with the steps that Canonical are taking. They should have done this a long time ago.

What I can see so far is not a single codebase, but more of codebase sharing thing. The UI for the phone is completely different from the PC's Unity. While underlying libraries, demons, etc can mostly be easily shared between a desktop and a cell phone, the UI must stay different. If that trend carries on, a future released Ubuntu Phone will get one more customer.

From reading the wiki page about Unity Next I got the impression that they're planning on making one shell that will "change" accordingly to the current conditions, i.e., phone -> tablet -> desktop. Considering what they're planing to do and what qt5/qml2 is capable of I think they can do it. Although, until I see the code and actual implementation I can't say much about it.

That's where they're starting, this time next year they'll be using a very different stack, can't say I'm super excited by their approach though, it's a profoundly divisive one, in a community that really doesn't need any more division.

In one of the interviews with Mark Shuttleworth he was quite clear about Canonical's need to control much of the underlying base of the system in order to make Ubuntu-Unity happen, i.e., when too many companies work on one stuff it always ends in failure. Whatever the reasons, I'm quite glad that Canonical ditched gnome and gtk completely. They have been a royal pain in the bum to everyone for quite some time now.

When it comes to Mir its development is only "ideologically" divisive. Unity Next is being(?) written in qt5/qlm2 and these already have decent backends for wayland. So, in the worst case scenario if Mir doesn't work at all due to lack of resources, knowledge, whatever, they'll have to port only the Mir specific things that Unity Next uses to Wayland. Assuming that Mir/Wayland are very much alike (and they should be) this shouldn't be too difficult. But, that depends on Canonical. They can decide to tie Unity Next strongly to Mir, so that you can't port it to a different platform.

Yes, I'm well aware of all their stated rationales, on balance it simply didn't weigh-up at all... But we are where we are, we've been given no choice but to move forward with what we have.And it's more than ideologically, there's still some "big questions" over final licensing & other things. But this is all well beyond the scope of this thread....

If they had done this without alienating the FOSS community with the likes of Mir, then I would be on board. But given that they've proved themselves to be a bunch of ass-clowns, I've purged my life of everything Ubuntu and won't be going anywhere near it ever again in any form.

From reading the wiki page about Unity Next I got the impression that they're planning on making one shell that will "change" accordingly to the current conditions, i.e., phone -> tablet -> desktop. Considering what they're planing to do and what qt5/qml2 is capable of I think they can do it. Although, until I see the code and actual implementation I can't say much about it.

To me that sounds like the same thing that KDE guys are doing with their Plasma Active project. Since modern DEs became ones of most bloated and resource-consuming projects that included much more stuff than only UI, that pretty much makes sense. As a long-standing KDE/Qt fan I'm only glad about the Ubuntu switch. Can't say what was wrong with Gnome/GTK+ as I couldn't find out it myself, but several times I tried to use and dig Gnome or Xfce I always failed to do that. They just irritate me. Much less than Windows XP theme though =)

I'm looking forward to see how the problem of changing the UI of the same application on different platforms will be overcome. At the moment you have to have a touch-oriented application UI to comfortably use the application on a tablet/cell phone. That's the major restriction of the concept 'one OS for all devices'.

Well I was getting ready to invest in another smartphone and now it looks like I will wait until the consumer model comes out with Ubuntu already installed. Not impressed with Apple anymore, thought about an Android phone, played with a Windows phone and I just don't like tiles or the Windows 8 style, but I do like Unity, which I've been using since it came out on Ubuntu. Unity is easy to learn for people who want to and I do like the all in one concept they are headed for.

Speaking for myself only. I'm a fan in theory of the direction that MS is trying, although the execution appears to be lacking so far (just based on a few things I've read). I'm also a fan of someone else trying to do the same general thing, and hope they get it right.

I've not been a fan of the idea that there is something inherently different in smartphones that mean people no longer care about multi-tasking or having a file manager or anyone of a number of things that are taken for granted on a desktop OS.

Well come back when you've actually used the OS, not only read about it.

The third-party application support you'd need to install Emacs and start coding on your smartphone isn't here yet, either—as we've said, this is clearly not ready for your current smartphone.

While true Linux geeks will appreciate support like this, I hardly think this is a factor on which to gauge whether the OS is ready for my smartphone.

That said, I think that while as a Linux fan I can appreciate the nerdiness with which I can use "apt get" and other terminal commands to install this on my Android phone, a standard installation method for those not so familiar with Linux would help increase the popularity significantly.

If, on the other hand Canonical is targeting ONLY Linux geeks, then by all means, they should focus on coding apps and making the install as much of a hassle as possible.

I still have some concerns. Unless something has changed, I believe that they are not going to have their own app store, but rely on the cell carriers to have their own app stores. That is great for the carriers because they can get a cut, but not for the consumer.

What happens to your apps when you switch carriers and get a new phone? At least today if I bought an app through the Apple app store, or Google Play, I still own that app.

The carriers do not own the App stores.....

Ubuntu has been working on improving the software experience for users for a long time now. In other distributions, the GUI that comes pre-installed is often lacking and won't find what you are looking for.http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/features/more-apps

Ubuntu will also sell you music and the like.

Many apps on android come with an unlock code that you can buy either through the paid version of the app or from the dev's website directly. Such a practice is not allowed in iOS as far as I know.

My guess is, that it will be up to the developers if they want to give you access to an app across different platforms (except iOS). A dev could easily give you login to unlock "paid" features of an app (maybe even the full app) regardless of where you downloaded or purchased the original app from.

Eh ... I remain unconvinced. I mean, I'm really happy to finally see a truly open source mobile OS, but after watching a video of Shuttleworth demoing the UI, I was kind of disappointed.

Major elements of the UI are obscured, only to be accessed by even more obscure swipe guestures. It's very ... claustrophobic, somehow. Sorry, I want clear, descriptive buttons, or at least some sort of visual cue that swipe-here-does-this.

Can someone summarize the appeal of this? I love Ubuntu and use it every day on my main laptop, but the main appeal is the shell, grep/sed/awk/etc, the repos, and super awesome for python/scala/ruby/LaTeX work. The GUI elements are generally not why people love Linux. So what is the draw of an Ubuntu phone/tablet OS?

Speaking for myself:

I've used both iOS and Android.

With iOS I always felt like Apple was trying their hardest to prevent me from doing things I wanted to do with my phone. Even simple things like changing carrier on an unlocked phone was a pain: I had to use a 3rd party hack just to make the carrier apn setting visible to get 3g data. As the locked-down, user-hostile nature of iOS is well known, I won't go on about it needlessly here.

With Android you can do what you like with your device and run what you want on your device, but much of the core functionality depends on Google services. Often there are no real alternatives (or no good ones) because the Google stuff does work and "if it ain't broke" (...although there is Fdroid, which helps). Consequently if you decide you don't want to use those services (perhaps because you are privacy-conscious) doing very simple things suddenly becomes a lot more difficult. Also, the loss of USB mass-storage makes users jump through additional hoops for no good reason (ESPECIALLY if you use an OS which does not support MTP out of the box). And a lot of what I would regard as fairly normal tasks seem either rely on rooting or involve convoluted work-arounds to avoid having to invoke root privileges. All this adds up to an experience which quickly starts to feel as restrictive and frustrating as iOS.

All in all, with both OSs I have felt that I had to struggle with my phone to get it do do what I want the way I want.

I'm HOPING that Ubuntu Touch will be more like my PC, in that 1. I'll be able to use the device as I see fit, and run whatever I want to run, 2. I'll be able to decide which online services (if any) I want to use, and 3. I'll be able to make decisions about disclosing my personal information without loosing core functionality. Basically I'd just like my phone to be as easy to use as my PC is. In 2013 that shouldn't be so much to ask.

If one were to believe the press, PCs are in fact very hard to use. That's why PC sales are declining and average joes are going with easy to use tablets where you don't have to spend hours maintaining the device. If you made the phone like a PC, i doubt it would do well. Just look at Windows Mobile.

Average Joe's who edit videos, spreadsheets, graphics, and documents still have PC's. They just don't use the PC when all they want to do is browse the web. Since they are spending more on phones, tablets, and wireless data plans, they have less money to spend on new computers so they are hanging on to their old one's longer.

Not to belittle linux and yes it is not finshed yet but seriously when i got my windows phone the first thing i thought was how great it was to have virtually every app at my fingertips either on the home screen or the menu when you swipe from the right. There is no going into a screen and another sceen and another scren to get to things, everyhting is easily accesible in a simple menu format. And that is the advantage i think WP* has over it's competiotion, it is smooth and fast and easy to use. It took me all of 30 seconds to get into the most deep setting and change it, it gave enoughnUI feedback that i knwe what i had done and what i wanted to do . Coming from android it was a dream and actually felt so simple i thought i must have been missing somethign , but i found i was not.Other than the app wars that are going on at the moment i think wp8 is the best OS, and this is coming from someone who loves the android OS. Linux jsut seems to be too complicated here, but saying that reading about something and actually having hands on experience is another thing. Being able to swipe from left to right and right to left and top down bottom up and use the corners for menus is a great feature and i hope they use it well. It would be terrible if like android there are a million ways to do the same thing. I want all my settings under one settings button and all my contacts under one contacts button. I don't want to have contacts spread through the phone unless it takes me back to the original contact screen which i would hope i knew how to use. This is the only thing that got me about android , although it was being improved when i decided to jump ship.

All i want is a phone that does what i want it to do i don't want to have to keep changing settings unless it is to save battery in an emergency situation. My W1 can run for three days receiving calls and texts or i can have the full live email and social updates and get a day and a half to two days.That is what is important to me to be able to set my phone up to use as i want and not have to change settings in multiple places to do anything.

Hopefully they will not make the linux OS too complicated to use and they will make it feel like a windows phone feels to me now, my first impression with a windows phone was where is everything, i must be missing loads of features and stuff, but i wasn't i was using a well laid out system that felt natural and easy to use.

Sorry for talking about windows in a linux post it is just that i believe to have a future you have to compete with the best and at the moment there is no doubt in my mind , with a few little tweaks that should be here by the end of the year, windows phones are going to be the phone to beat.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.